Recently here at Wicker Man Studios, our publisher, Rodolfo, suggested that we needed to talk more about ourselves and help people better get to know us. So, Barb and I will be doing a series of postings about ourselves entitled “Married Geek Couple.”
But to practice, over Thanksgiving, while my mom was doing stuff in the kitchen, Barb suggested I go talk to my mom and ask her questions and get answers—because knowing about my mom is a part of knowing about me. So I just started asking my mother whatever questions came to mind, and here’s the results of that:
Park Cooper: Tell me about Papa’s [Mom’s father, my maternal grandfather] baseball team.
Dian Cooper: Ohhh. Papa was a great baseball pitcher. He always played baseball. Every job he ever had, he was hired because he was the best baseball pitcher.
Park: You mean like working for the oil field company baseball team.
Dian: And in the army. He played baseball in the army.
Park: His glasses didn’t interfere with that?
Dian: That was before he needed glasses. He was gassed in the oil fields, that’s what happened to his eyes.
Park: How did that happen?
Dian: He was working out there and there was an explosion and the gas gassed him.
Park: Like, it sprayed in his face?
Dian: Yes. Let me ask Denny [her brother, they do facetime chats sometimes now]. Can I ask Denny about the details?
Park: Well, not right this second, but later, yes.
Dian: Denny would love to tell you how that happened. [Later, Denny told mom “When gas hits water it turns to hydrochloride acid. So when the gas hit the tears in his eyes— it burned his eyes up. He was working in a pit beside an oil well and raw petroleum and gas sprayed out on him.” So… yikes.]
Park: And did Papa play baseball professionally?
Dian: Yes. For the Dallas Eagles… went on the road– on the train. To go to… different places.
Park: Before he was married.
Dian: Yes. Before the army, too. He met Mama [her mother, my maternal grandmother] playing baseball. That was in Breckenridge, TX. She lived there, her daddy walked the line looking for leaks or cracks in the oil line. For Humble Oil [pronounced “umble.” Humble Oil later turned into Exxon].
Park: So the time in the army was… between the two World Wars.
Dian: Yes.
Park: New question: Park and Barb are all about pop culture. What was your favorite comic strip when you were younger?
Dian: Everyone called me Aggie Mac when I was a little girl [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggie_Mack ] but when I was older my friends called me Olive Oyl [from the comic strip Popeye] because I was skinny. Toothpick legs.
Park: Am I correct that your first movie in a theater was Wizard of Oz, as I recall?
Dian: Yes, that I remember. Nothing else made an impact.
Park: I know you did NOT LIKE the flying monkeys.
Dian: I did not. I wanted to go home way before it was over. I remember trying to climb under the seat.
Park: Tell me about when I was little. Do you remember a book I first read? [I started reading at the age of two-and-a-half.]
Dian: If I Had a House and If I Had a Dog. [These were small, very tough cardboard “books” that unfolded with pictures—you could stand them up by themselves. Arguably as much a toy as a picture book.] After that you couldn’t get enough– you won the prize at the library. You don’t remember?
Park: I’m not sure I do. There’s a lot of photos of me on the library steps with certificates and such.
Dian: Today, you can get credit for library reading programs if your mother reads you the book. That was NOT the case then. You read them all yourself. You’d read at night. We’d stand outside your bedroom and listen. At church you’d read in the nursery. “Is he still reading? He read our Bible verse this morning! From the Bible!” I felt like “Of course he’s still reading! Are YOU still reading, lady?” You were two and a half. The newspaper.
Park: Wait, you’d listen to me read out loud to myself at night? Sounding things out?
Dian: Not sounding it out. Just like you were reading yourself a bedtime story. And when you found out about chapter books… Encyclopedia Brown, Danny Dunn, Sprout…
Park: You got me Weekly Reader books. [Books from a program where they’d send a child a short book suitable for children (tweens, say) once a week.]
Dian: Also you got Ranger Rick [a children’s magazine about nature]… and… stuff.
Park: Okay, now back to you. Did you have TV at home?
Dian: We didn’t until I was in fifth grade. Ed Sullivan. Ooby-Doobie [note: this means Roy Orbison, who was from the nearby West Texas town of Wink. Mother was from an oil-field-adjacent town named Wickett] on Saturday mornings. And Karen, a girl in my class, her brother was in his band. I had a little box record player… 45s would fit, but with 78s you couldn’t close the box. I bought a 45 about once a week. I could do anything I wanted because it was like I was an only child, because I was the baby and all my brothers and sisters had moved off. So it was like I lived with my grandparents. But not.
Park: I don’t mean to make you seem immodest, but… I’ve seen pictures of you and your friend in high school… Did people in town say “Oh, Dian Cooper? Yes, she and her friend are the most beautiful girls in town…”
Dian: No, they said that about my friend, but not about me. They didn’t think about me that way. I think it’s because I was FUNNY. The class clown. The comic relief of everything. Kind of a smart mouth. My 3rd grade teacher was also my science teacher. “What happened to you?” By which she meant that “your outlandish personality has taken over…”
Park: [This is completely news to me…] I never heard that. So you were a WIT?
Dian: There was a triple trio in school– 9 little girls that sang together– but one of them left, moved away or something, and they said “Let’s get Dian!” And the teacher said [hesitantly] “Well…” and they said “I know you don’t think Dian can sing, but she’s so FUN! I’ll teach her my part.” So I took that to heart and tried to be funny. Sarcastic. Which I hate now, but that’s how I was then. “Can I sit with y’all?” “No we’re full. Ha ha just kidding, sit down.” I wasn’t mean, but… sort of contrary.
Park: Are you sure that some of it wasn’t that your sisters left home around that time? And so your… personality sort of blossomed, without them around?
Dian: No, I feel like I was a quiet little girl even after they left. But in junior high… I might have been trying to attract boys? And get attention? I dunno. …I didn’t really babysit, but my little niece and nephew came to live with me… but I had no authority over them– we were just playmates. I was like their aunt. Which I was, but… When I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to play with other children. They weren’t considered good enough I guess. But some little children and I would meet up and climb trees. And play baseball, I loved that.
Park: Were you a tomboy? [I asked this thinking specifically of the female lead character from our novel SONG TO THE SIREN…]
Dian: Yes, but a girly-girl too. But left to my own devices every day I was a tomboy. But Sam [her other brother]… When I was like eight… six maybe… he went off to the Navy. When he came home on leave, he brought me a toy monkey with a curly tail. But also a Bulova watch. Like a big girl. From the Px.
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At this point, I stopped with the questions, because I wanted to run read all this to Barb… maybe we’ll do it again some day…